January 30, 2018

Don't Lock Her Up

I'm just spit-balling here, but it makes sense: What if the best course of action for president Trump, and for Republicans is to make sure Hillary Clinton, as corrupt and probably felonious as she is, does not get charged for all of the nefarious activity surrounding her campaign for the presidency? Further, what if the smart thing to do is to not have a special investigator go after her?

The look of supreme confidence.

Hear me out.

It does not make sense for Donald Trump to prosecute Hillary Clinton for a number of reasons. Obviously coming across as a sore winner is never good, but it goes deeper. If the #ReleaseTheMemo memo is as explosive as is expected (I refer you to the permanently haunted visage of Democrat FBI/DOJ-excuser Adam Schiff), then the correct target should be the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI and not the Clintons or former president Obama for that matter, regardless of the level of their involvement. Even if it turns out to be really, really bad.

The laser focus of draining the swamp on the DOJ and the FBI. With the backing of sunlight of the crimes and/or deliberate lack of due diligence with respect to all things dossier and Clinton email scandal there will be plenty to uncover and it could take years.

That allows the on-going narrative of "look what the Democrats were hiding" and "look at all these things we still need to fix" and "look at all the unresolved corruption issues". That's a political plus but it's not even the biggest one.

The real win in keeping Hillary Clinton hanging in the wind is that it pressures those in the FBI and DOJ to be more forthcoming in hopes of getting a prosecutorial deal. And it still gets better. There has been an underlying theme among Democrats that the Clintons had a stranglehold on the institutions surrounding the Democratic party as well as deeply rooted connections to the bureaucracy of government. The Democrats, many of them at least, have been trying to shed that yoke on the party. So far there has not been any great ice breaking on that effort.

Why would the president help the Democrats resolve that by giving them cover to distance themselves from the Clintons? There's no gain in that. It helps drain the Democrats' swamp but does nothing to chip away at the deep state. The deep state needs cleaning, but the Republicans need the Democrats to remain mired in an intra-party fight, right through 2020 and certainly at a minimum the remainder of 2018.

It's a cynical view, but control the investigation timing and you control the mood of the country. You control an eagerness on the right to see prosecutions with a Clinton facing charges as the carrot to dangle. Conversely on the left, you keep them unbalanced in their desire to free themselves from Clinton fealty versus a real fear of not wanting to be on the wrong side of the Clinton machine. My advice is simple: even if you have the goods on Hillary Clinton, don't lock her up, at least not until after 2021.